Ontario's Progressive Conservatives are reaching out to a wider pool of potential converts with an election platform that promises to protect funding for cherished public services, while shrinking government and rolling out $3.5 billion in tax relief over four years.
Leader Tim Hudak's vision for Ontario -- outlined Sunday in a platform titled "Changebook" -- doesn't include buying beer for a buck, a broad-based cut to the harmonized sales tax, or even a balanced budget for the deficit-ridden province within his first mandate.
Rather than campaigning on the kind of radical changes that propelled the party to power in the past, Hudak is turning the tables on the governing Liberals by matching key promises to expand full-day kindergarten and slay the deficit while throwing in a few conservative staples designed to harness taxpayer outrage.
Here are the highlights.
"Changebook reflects where I come from and Changebook reflects, I think, the values of the vast majority of Ontario families," Hudak said as the party's three-day convention drew to a close on Sunday.
"I think we hit those priorities dead on."
Families want to see more money for health care and education, an end to government waste and scandal and more money in their pockets, Hudak added. And "Changebook" delivers on those three key priorities.
The Tories plan to chop two per cent of government spending each year if they win the Oct. 6 election, starting with $600 million in the first year.
Ontario would emerge from the red ink no later than 2017 and if ministers don't meet their budget targets, they'll have their pay docked.
A Conservative government would also root out waste and red tape, as well as trim the bureaucracy -- mostly by not filling vacant positions -- and cut the cabinet by 20 per cent.
Public sector wages would be reduced and arbitrators would be required to take into account the government's ability to pay when ruling on contracts.
First on the chopping block are the province's 14 Local Health Integration Units, the Ontario Power Authority that manages the energy supply and the Liberals' green energy plans, including a $7-billion deal with Samsung. Government assets could also potentially be sold.
Over 600 provincial agencies, boards and commissions would be reviewed and if they can't justify their existence, they'll go too.
Only the health care and education -- which make up 70 per cent of government spending -- would be spared, with the Tories promising billions more over four years.
Health care will get an extra $6.1 billion while education funding will ramp up to an additional $2 billion by year four.
Hudak said he has no plans to privatize health care. But the Tories do plan to crack down on OHIP fraud by requiring patients to provide cards with photo IDs.
By sheltering those core services, Hudak appears to be making a play for the middle ground that Premier Dalton McGuinty has commanded for eight years, while defusing Liberal attacks that he'd close hospitals and provoke widespread labour unrest.
He's also promising to invest more than $35 billion in infrastructure, much of it in transit and transportation over first three years, and give all municipalities a share of the provincial gas tax pie.
But "Changebook" is also offering up some red-meat morsels for the party's blue base.
The Tories would force prisoners to perform 40 hours of manual labour a week, have public-sector unions bid on government contracts and prohibit people from collecting welfare unless they've lived in the province for at least a year.
The promise to put inmates to work has already generated a lot of attention, but not all of it positive.
"They're playing the lowball game, appealing to the lowest in human beings with things like the chain gang," said Bryan Evans, a politics professor at Toronto's Ryerson University.
"It's a base kind of politics to appeal to people's sense of grievance and envy and just looking to punish people rather than speaking a language of something that's more positive and uplifting and moving everyone forward together."
As for Hudak's long-promised plan to slash taxes, he's taking a page from his federal cousins by slowing phasing in the cuts.
Taxpayers would get some immediate relief starting in July 2012 when the provincial portion of the HST would be stripped from home heating and hydro bills, as well as the debt retirement charge on electricity bills. Eco fees on electronics and other household items would also disappear.
Other tax breaks would be rolled out over four years, including a five per cent cut on the first $75,000 of taxable income that the Tories say would save $258 a year for someone earning $70,000.
Couples would be able to share up to $50,000 of their income for tax purposes, which they say would save almost $1,400 a year for a family earning $70,000. The caregiver tax credit would also double under a Tory government to help people care for their loved ones.
